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| How to lead in times of insecurity ??? |
Many readers asked me about a post I published in March on the blog of my former firm about Leadership in times of insecurity... Here it is.
When I reflected on the theme “Leadership in times of insecurity”, I immediately thought about the popular acronym that’s used to describe the world we live in: VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous). I find this is a pretty clear and concise definition of “insecure times”.
Many different skills and attitudes are required of leaders in such an insecure world. From my experience in working with successful CEO's as well as religious and political leaders, I can list four critical qualities:
Creativity. Information flows at incredible speed in the digital era. Ideas emerge and fade rapidly, and only the great ones survive and thrive. Therefore, rapid and efficient innovation is the key to succeeding in such a world, and creativity is the fuel. Leaders today must become (and remain) generators of cutting-edge ideas.
Adaptability. The world changes from day to day. On September 14, 2008, anyone in corporate finance would have been thrilled with a job at the prestigious Lehman Brothers. But it was a completely different story on September 15, when Lehman collapsed. More than ever, leaders must adapt to (instant) change. They must seek change and they must love change. In fact, leaders must become agents of change and be able to take command of it. Adaptability is the best leadership attitude in a perfect corporate storm.
Capability. It is not enough for leaders to be creative and adaptable in our insecure world. They must be capable, too. Needless to say, corporate life equips people with leadership tricks, management toolkits, and best practices, among others. Every day at work is a learning day: capability becomes deeper and broader as you get older. The only trick is then to figure out how and when to use it properly. And remember, in today’s insecure world, pure strategy is meaningless – only strategy with good execution, based on real capabilities, will succeed!
Humility. In February 2013, I wrote on my blog about what I see as a leader’s greatest strength – humility. I believe that, in insecure times, the best leaders have to admit that they do not know it all. Most certainly, leaders will fail at some stage in a VUCA world. Only the greatest leaders will learn from their failures and their mistakes, and they will recover fast by fixing the problem. The CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi, Kevin Roberts, sums it up very well: Fail fast, learn fast, fix fast. You can read more about humility, the trait all successful leaders must have, in this blog post.
The four characteristics above are necessary to succeed in insecure times, but they may not be sufficient. Leaders need to do many other things in order to handle insecurity. For instance:
- Making bold and courageous decisions without having all the facts and figures at hand
- Defining and implementing the right purpose and following it whatever the obstacles
- Being resilient no matter what degree of pressure and insecurity they may face
- Acting together, playing a collective game, rather than trying to optimize locally on your own. There is a great African proverb which says: “If you want to go fast, you go alone. If you want to go far, you go together.” Setting up partnerships is the key to succeeding in an insecure world; NGOs, governments, corporations must act as one, with a common vision and positive attitude
There is a lot more to say, but I will end here and leave you with two ideas to trigger further thoughts on this blog, and hopefully an active online discussion:
First, in times of insecurity, true leaders do not simply seek to thrive and succeed. True leaders inspire and connect people to make the world a better place.
Second, do we have to continue to describe our world as “volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous”? Couldn’t we see this differently and more optimistically? Why not think of it as “vibrant, unique, cool and astounding”!
